Internet Sites Go Dark to Protest Anti-Piracy Bills

January 18, 2012

Students counting on Wikipedia today to help them finish papers or prep for exams are out of luck. The online encyclopedia’s English-language site has gone dark for 24 hours as part of a Web-wide blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (HR 3261), or SOPA, a bill being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives, and its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act (S 968), or PIPA. Both bills have come under heavy fire from the tech industry and from Internet-freedom advocates because they would make it possible to shut down Web sites that link to unauthorized content. That puts sites with a lot of user-generated content especially at risk.